a moral stanza that has its fellow in a couplet carved upon an old oak beam over the door of the rebuilt “Thorn” inn at Appleton, in the same county:
You may safely when sober sit under the thorn,
But if drunk overnight, it will prick you next morn.
A similar moral tendency used to be shown by the sign of the “Grenadier” at Whitley, near Reading, in the verse:
This is the Whitley Grenadier,
A noted house of famous beer;
Stop, friend, and if you make a call,
Beware, and get not drunk withal,
Let moderation be your guide,
It answers well where’er ’tis tried,
Then use, and don’t abuse, strong beer,
And don’t forget the Grenadier.
It was probably when the inn became a “tied” house that this exhortation to drink moderately disappeared. It will readily be understood that a brewery company could have no sympathy with such an inducement to reduce their returns.
A frank invitation to enter and take your fill, without any further stipulation, is to be seen outside the picturesquely placed “Bee-hive” inn at Eaumont Bridge, between Penrith and Ullswater; in the words painted round a bee-hive:
Within this hive we’re all alive,
Good liquor makes us funny;
If you be dry, step in and try
The virtue of our honey.
The same sentiment prevails at the “Cheney Gate” inn, between Macclesfield and Congleton, on whose sign you read:
Stay Traveller, thyself regale,
With spirits, or with nut-brown ale,
while